Blog Posts in Category: Culture & Sustainability

As a freshman at UNH in the fall of 2010, I worked at Holloway Commons. When I heard about the infamous Local Harvest Dinner hosted by UNH Dining, and as a blossoming Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems major, I begged my boss to let me do anything I could to be involved. Subsequently, to my initial excitement and almost as instant dismay, that meant working the event. If you’ve ever been to the dining halls on this fateful night, you won’t blame me for vowing to never work it again.
So...Read More

You've heard of carnivores, omnivores and herbivores; but have you ever heard of locavores? This sustainable-pop-culture term describes consumers of local foods, a group which has been steadily growing over the last decade. A recent USDA report announced that the local food markets generate $4.8 Billion dollars in the US every year and are expected to reach $7 Billion this year.
The local food movement fosters sustainable relationships between producers and consumers in an area, providing...Read More

Last week, when summer decided that we all needed at least one more day of 95 degrees and 100% humidity, I stopped to buy a water bottle on my way to class. I didn't think about it until I sat down in my lecture and received glares and sideways glances at the plastic bottle from five or six of my classmates. Under their stares, I felt like I needed to explain myself, to tell them that I forgot my Nalgene bottle and was surely going to die of thirst. Underneath my embarrassment, however, was a...Read More

If you keep up with your UNH news, you’ve probably heard by now that Muhammad Yunus is going to be on campus this month. While the Nobel laureate and founder of the Grameen Bank may not rap nearly as well as SCOPE’s Fall artist Kendrick Lamar, you could say he’s kind of a big deal.
Dr. Yunus is a pioneer, perhaps the pioneer, of microcredit and one of the first advocates of micro-loans as a force for sustainable economic development.
Photo credit: The Grameen Foundation
While many in the...Read More

About halfway through class today, the freshman sitting next to me tapped me on the shoulder and whispered, “This isn’t Chem. 403, is it?” With a beet-red face, he struggled down the aisle and out the door. This, I thought, is the life of a college student. Between figuring out where our classes are, how clickers work and what in the world the “Dump” is, few of us realize what incredible opportunities living at or near UNH offers. By the time we do, we are nostalgic seniors, filling up our...Read More

When I transferred to UNH as a junior as an anthropology major, I did not know exactly what it was I wanted to pursue. I had previously struggled with selecting an area of focus, torn between political science, environmental science, cultural anthropology, agriculture, and even philosophy. Through focusing on social institutions and stratification, policy, and cultural adaption, the courses that I took upon reaching UNH enabled me to see the connections between culture and sustainability. ...Read More

Congratulations to Chris, Jocelyn and Catie for winning the Earth Day contest we held today with @UofNH! All three students told us they do great things for the environment, from carpooling to using reusable water bottles and coffee mugs to starting a new sustainability and business student group.
At UNH, even our Wildcat knows how to go green, drinking tap water out of a reusable bottle. Happy Earth Day from UNH!
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I recently traveled to Arizona State University for a recruitment visit for students who have been accepted to the Sustainability program. During my last day in sunny Arizona, I was able to attend “Emerge”, a program through which innovative artists, scientists, and prolific thinkers are invited from all over to participate in workshops, after which they present their results to the public. One of the more memorable speakers at this event was Guillermo Bert, an artist from Chile. His most...Read More

Picture from travelfoodanddrink.com
No, this is not something my friends and I thought of one late night in college. It’s the best part of the Sugar on Snow Supper, an event that is widespread through VT and other parts of New England during maple syrup season.
Go to any small town in Vermont or NH and ask someone what a Sugar on Snow Supper is. If they’ve been living there a long time, chances are they will not only tell you what it is, but where the best ones are. I have been going to...Read More